Guardian Angel

Chapter 33 - Melody

Melody held her breath while the sharp silver knife in her hand slit Daniel's throat. She had her eyes closed. She didn't want to see how blood would soil his shirt. She didn't want to watch Daniel die. She heard his last breath leave him though and she steadied her stance to catch his lifeless body whenever it would fall.

"Melody..." Max crossed his arms over her chest. "He's gone." Max whispered in her ear. "His body's gone. He's gone." He tightened his grip and Melody dropped the knife before she grabbed his arm, squeezing it probably that hard that she was actually hurting him.

"No, he can't be gone." Melody shook her head, but when she opened her eyes she saw that Max was right.

There was no body. There was no dead guardian angel. There was nothing.

He was gone. Daniel was gone. And maybe he would never appear again.

"No!" Melody filled her lungs with air and she started screaming and fighting. She started hitting. She started kicking. She freed herself from Max' strong embrace. "He can't be gone. He can't be gone. He has to be somewhere. He has to come back." She fell down on her knees in the grass, next to where his body should have been.

"I guess it's part of the ritual." Max kneeled down next to her and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "He'll come back and he'll be fine." Max straightened his back and lifted his chin. It was clear that he was lying. He didn't believe his own words, but Melody held on to anything she could hold onto, even to lies.

"Yes, it has to be part of the ritual." Melody didn't want to think about the alternative. She didn't want to think about the fact that maybe Daniel was gone, that maybe she had been the one killing him, that maybe she had been the one making him disappear and this time forever.

He had maybe known her her entire life already. He had maybe seen her grow up into the girl she was nowadays.

But she had never gotten the chance to really get to know him. She had never gotten the chance to ask him what kind of breakfast he liked in the morning. She had never gotten the chance to study all his weird habits that she would call cute.

"Melody, you're bleeding." Max used his thumb to wipe the drops of blood from her lip.

She had not even realised that she had been biting her lip like that.

Daniel would have realised. He probably would have noticed that she would hurt herself before she would have done so. In a way he had always known Melody better than she had ever known herself.

She felt her chest moving up and down and once more she closed her eyes. She had no idea if she had to pray, if she had to talk to a God, if she had to beg someone to bring him back. She was willing to try everything. She was willing to do everything she had to do to make sure that she would be able to get to know him as well as he knew her.

"Mel..." Max didn't even use her full name anymore. "Mel, open your eyes!" He spoke softly and his words were almost taken away by the wind before Melody could hear him.

Reluctantly Melody opened her eyes and she held her breath when she saw Daniel appearing.

He moved his legs, his arms and even the tips of his fingers. The vein in his neck was beating visibly and Melody reached out her hand to place it on his chest.

She could feel his heart beating.

At first it was beating slowly and steadily and then it started to go faster and faster until it was racing that fast that Melody pulled her hand back.

"Do you think this a good sign?" Melody stuttered, but she didn't turn her head away from Daniel, from his tensing muscles and his rapidly beating heart. "Do you think this means that he will wake up?"